Allen Dexter Waugh

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, June 9, 1999

Allen Dexter Waugh, a longtime Examiner reporter and one of the media's most important voices for multicultural education in California schools, is dead.

Mr. Waugh, 57, who had a recent heart attack and suffered from diabetes, died in his sleep at his Foster City home on Monday.

"The thing I remember the most about him was going the extra mile to give voice to people who didn't have it in media," said state Deputy Superintendent of Education Henry Der. He said an Examiner series by Mr. Waugh and K. Connie Kang on the inclusion of more diverse cultural information in history and social studies was a major contribution to the drive for multicultural education in the 1980s.

"We may not have prevailed in terms of issues we raised because the state board went ahead and did what they wanted to do," Der said. "But his commitment to multicultural education and questioning why textbooks were not more inclusive showed that he was ahead of his time."

Mr. Waugh co-wrote a book on the politics of statewide textbook adoption, titled "Great Speckled Bird: Multicultural Politics and Education Policymaking," with Catherine Cornbleth, a professor of curriculum studies at the University of Buffalo.

"He was wonderful to work with," Cornbleth said. "I've never worked with anyone before that I could trust so completely. His humor was wonderful and he was a superb editor."

Mr. Waugh's commitment to giving voice to those who usually don't have it also showed in his coverage of minority communities in The City, particularly in the Tenderloin.

"I always got the sense from him that his interest was in making sure the people who lived here were covered fairly," said Kelly Cullen, a Franciscan brother and director of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. "He was a great reporter . . . very thorough in doing his work, making sure the story wasn't just the surface of the water."

"Some people look at what politicians are doing. Dexter always listened to people at the ground level," said L. Ling-chi Wang, a UC-Berkeley professor of ethnic studies. "So I'm not surprised he was far ahead of his time. Dexter was one of the most decent men I've ever met."

Examiner columnist Stephanie Salter cited Mr. Waugh's five-part series on the lives of Southeast Asian refugees in 1986 as illustrative of his brilliance as a reporter and sensitivity as a person.

"The end product is an awesome piece of work for a team, let alone one reporter," Salter said. "He covered every aspect from the dry bones federal cost of resettlement to the reasons that Hmong refugees had the toughest time of any group adjusting to the U.S.

"If he'd never written anything else for The Examiner, this series would have justified a decade of paychecks. It's not flashy or sexy, just breathtakingly solid journalism."

A native of Los Angeles, Mr. Waugh graduated from UC-Berkeley where he and Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll worked for the California Pelican, a humor magazine. "He wrote odd little stories," said Carroll, a longtime friend. "He was extremely shy and diffident and had a wry sense of humor. He was a splendid companion."

As editor of the Pelican, Mr. Waugh created a pre-free speech era uproar on the Berkeley campus by running a satirical ad that was a slap at the scarcity of African American models in national advertising. "It offended practically everyone," Mr. Waugh once said, "so I guess it worked."

Added Examiner editorial writer Lynn Ludlow, "From his days on the Daily Cal through his career at the Examiner, he managed somehow to combine a dry wit, awesome reporting skills, elegant writing and an abiding empathy for people in need."

Mr. Waugh worked on the Contra Costa Times, Pittsburg Post-Dispatch and the Mount Morris, Ill., Index before joining The Examiner in 1967. He won numerous awards while reporting on neighborhoods, ethnic groups and other areas for The Examiner.

Mr. Waugh retired several years ago for health reasons.

He was a co-founder of the Bay Area Journalism Review in the 1970s and was longtime editor of Ralph, the newspaper of the Northern California Newspaper Guild.

Mr. Waugh is survived by two daughters, Midori Sperandeo, of Fair Oaks, and Masaye Waugh, of San Francisco; a sister, Charlotte Waugh, of San Jose; and his father, Robert, of Sunnyvale.

A memorial service will be held Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at Oakland Hill Funeral Home, 300 Curtiner Ave. in San Jose.